Pay equity law due in October

Press, 13 May 1989, Page 10

Pay equity law due in October

By

PATTRICK SMELLIE

in Wellington

Pay equity legislation to improve the pay rates for industries dominated by women will be introduced in October, the Minister of Women’s Affairs, Mrs Shields, said last evening. Addressing a Labour Party conference on policy for women, Mrs Shields said equal employment opportunity legislation? waiS ’ not enough' to ensure women’s pay improved to equate with mens.’ “Women are concentrated in a narrow range of lowpaid occupations and will continue to do those jobs. "They provide essential services we can’t do without. The reason that they are underpaid is that they are done by women, and they reflect tasks performed by women, for nothing, in the home arid the community,” said Mrs Shields.

But the Government was looking at how if could avoid undue intervention in the labour market when implementing pay equity.

“My first response is that interventions already exist,” she said. “It is important, however, that we are able to strike a balance in the degree of intervention that we are prepared to accept while still achieving the equitable outcome for women that we desire. “That outcome has to include a process by which a binding decision can be reached if the parties involved in negotiations can’t agree.” While there were costs to pay equity, Mrs Shields said the changes would take several years to occur, and it appeared the economy would be stronger by then. “In addition, pay equity will not affect all women, but only those women in female intensive occupations who are currently being paid at a rate that is discriminating.”

There would be savings to the taxpayer from pay equity from lower income maintenance and social welfare requirements. Mrs Shields also outlined the work of a study group into the economic value of unpaid women’s work, with a view to using such information to improve allocation of support services to women.